Labor of Love
by Etaleah
Summary: John is tired of giving store-bought gifts for his and Sherlock's anniversary and decides it's high time he attempt to make something for a change. Expressing from the heart ends up being tougher than he thinks.


Their anniversary is coming up and John is at a loss for gift ideas.

He has given Sherlock every cliché present in the book. Flowers, chocolates, matching jewelry, a romantic dinner, a trip to the beach, an adventure (or dozen) in bed. Sherlock has happily accepted them, probably for John's sake, but it isn't enough. They're all the kinds of things he did for his old girlfriends, most of whom he didn't even care about. Sherlock is special. He deserves better. If only John weren't so utterly uncreative.

He thinks long and hard about what Sherlock loves most. _Murders._ He couldn't very well give that, at least not legally. _Chinese food, biscuits, and tea._ Those were the most unromantic and pedestrian of anniversary gifts and John would not stoop that low. _Tobacco, although he's been better about quitting._ That wouldn't work either for obvious reasons. _Bees._ John tries to think of something bee-themed but comes up blank. _Music._ This is what John has clung to for the last three anniversaries, taking Sherlock to concerts, giving him CD's of his favorite hard-to-find musicians, and one year he had even paid to have his violin serviced and refinished—and God, how he had splurged for that one. He hasn't told Sherlock, but he's actually still paying it off.

None of it is enough. John doesn't want to buy something from a store and crash his bank account in the mere hope that Sherlock will like it. John wants to _make_ something this time. He doesn't know what, but something.

Case in point: Mrs. Hudson is always making them the most lovely, heartfelt gifts. She bakes them their favorite pastries which they wolf down, knits them sweaters and hats which they grudging wear in public to the jeers and laughs of Scotland Yard, crochets them doilies which they put on their table, and in a very special gesture, knitted them each a blanket they use every winter. John can't remember being made to feel more special by anyone except Sherlock, and he wants his husband to feel that way too.

So. If he can't bake, build, cook, crochet, draw, or sew, what _can_ he do?

Unfortunately the answer lies in the one place John swore he would never go. The realm in which he knows no one, doesn't care to know anyone, has difficulty navigating, and wants to leave as soon as possible: Pinterest.

Shredding what remains of his man card, John clicks through boards and searches one keyword after another until he finds it. The perfect present for Sherlock that John can actually create on his own without breaking the bank.

* * *

John has a hell of a time keeping a secret from the world's only consulting detective. He hides the spiral binding, scissors, edging shears, construction paper, Sharpies, ruler, bee stickers, glue sticks, stationery, ink pens, Scotch tape, printed posts from his blog, old newspaper clippings, and copies of the photos they've taken on their adventures together. These have been especially difficult to gather due to how scattered they are. They're on his blog, on their phones, on an old digital camera, on Mrs. Hudson's camera, and online.

When Sherlock is guaranteed to be gone for the day on a case and John is finally able to work, he draws up a timeline and turns it into a table of contents. He begins it with the day they met and ends it with their upcoming anniversary. Some highlights are their first case, their first date, their engagement, and of course, their wedding and honeymoon, among others. He starts sorting his supplies, deciding what will go where and which will be together and how he'll caption them all. The whole time he's careful, his soldier senses on alert, and as soon as he hears steps on the stairs, he hides it all and leaves his abandoned old bedroom.

He sneaks and hides and sneaks and hides for weeks at a time.

* * *

John has been working for eight hours on the last sixty pages. His eyes hurt, his shoulders hurt, his back hurts, his neck hurts, his bum is sore, his feet are asleep, and his fingers are throbbing and swollen from using scissors for so long. The watch on his wrist tells him it's past four in the morning.

He has to keep going though. Sherlock will be awake in a few hours, ready to celebrate their anniversary, and John won't be able to work then. He has to have it finished by the time Sherlock wakes up, or he won't be able to give it to him at dinner and the whole plan will be ruined and all this work will have been for nothing. The very thought stings his eyes. That's almost as bad as Sherlock not liking it. John has poured himself and his feelings into this and he hates it even though he knows it's for a good cause. He's far too attached to this project for comfort.

John consoles himself by looking over what he has so far. Dark purple and black, blue and black, with the occasional red, white, and brown thrown in to match Sherlock's color preferences. All of the borders and edges are elegant and smooth, the photos are glued in nicely, the title grabs your attention. The pages turn easily. His captions under the photos are legible and clear—he'd managed to nip the habit of writing in doctor's scrawl after a few tries. Everything is straight and perfectly aligned.

Yet something is still missing. A final touch, a grand finale. John realizes there is one cliché romantic gift he has never given Sherlock, and he seriously doubts his ability to do it now but dammit he is going to try: a love poem.

Writing, poetry especially, has never been a strong suit of John's. He thinks of it as flowery language that never says exactly what it means, which annoys him since he's a get-to-the-point kind of man. Maybe Sherlock will appreciate that though. If anyone can, it's him.

John holds his pen over the paper for six minutes without writing a word. How does he do this? How does he convey with only twenty-six characters and a pen what Sherlock is to him? He closes his eyes, wishes he could sleep. Maybe if he just thinks of it like a blog post where he reports the facts…

 _I was so alone_

 _And I owe you so much_

 _Because when I'm with you,_

 _I might feel sad, scared, pissed_

 _But never alone. Not ever alone. Or unimportant._

 _[]_

 _Your arms are the best blanket._

 _Your chest is the softest pillow._

 _Your heart and your smile are like_

 _a warm fire with a cup of soup._

 _They melt away the cold, outside and in._

 _[]_

 _If I ever cry when I'm with you, it's only because_

 _there aren't enough days to tell you how much I love you._

 _There aren't enough nights to sleep by your side._

 _We could live a thousand years, and I'd only crave more._

 _So I cherish this year and next year and next, of us. You and me. Together._

[]

It doesn't rhyme and it's not exactly a Shakespeare sonnet, but it's the best he's got. John writes it into the last page in the most elegant script he can manage, waits a minute for the ink to dry, and finally closes the book and hides it. He doesn't even bother to dry his eyes or clean up the craft supplies before turning out the light, closing the door, tiptoeing downstairs, and collapsing into bed next to the love of his life.

* * *

If Sherlock is wondering why John has slept so late, he doesn't question it. They feed each other breakfast in bed, go for a walk in the park, and get in some cuddle time before their evening meal at Angelo's. John hides the present in a gift bag that he has made Sherlock swear on both their lives not to deduce.

Dinner is delicious, the mood is right, the wine is settling in their stomachs. Finally John hands over the gift bag, with his heart in his stomach and his tremor returning. He doesn't open himself up like this very often, and he hasn't made anyone anything since he was a child. He's scared and hopes Sherlock is too distracted to notice.

Sherlock thinks it's a book at first and wonders aloud what's so secret about that, then becomes breathless. He stares unblinking at the front cover. _The Story of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson._

"It's a scrapbook," John says. "I made it so you could remember our years together without having to clutter up your mind palace or limit yourself to reading my blog."

Sherlock opens the scrapbook, slowly making his way from cover to cover. He's taking in every inch of detail, little things John took painstaking care to put in because he knows how much Sherlock notices and cares about detail. The high-quality prints, the beautiful edges, the neatness of the pages, the bee stickers, everything spellchecked and grammar checked, the colors blending seamlessly, not a single ink smudge or drop of glue out of place. Years of time together documented on over a hundred pages. Their smiling faces look up at Sherlock under titles and dates, adjacent to blog posts describing what happened then and there. Slowly and silently, Sherlock turns the pages, until he comes to the poem and the blank pages after it.

"The blank pages are for future memories," John explains, probably needlessly. "I plan to have a lot more anniversaries with you." He squeezes Sherlock's hand.

Sherlock is reading the poem, multiples times John suspects, given how long it's taking him. He's even more nervous that Sherlock will hate it, think it's stupid and boring and ordinary, when the breath is knocked out of him by how quickly Sherlock engulfs him in one of the tightest, warmest, longest hugs they've ever shared. John feels his body shake against his own as he tries in vain to contain his emotions. It's okay, John is long past fretting about people talking.

"I love you," Sherlock says in a voice choking with tears. He barely gets out the next words through a sob. "Thank you so much, happy anniversary." He's crying too hard to talk now, and John is grateful they've already paid the bill so he can get them both home. Sherlock won't let go, he's clutching John with his arms and clutching the scrapbook with his hands, sobbing into John's shoulder because no one has _ever_ done anything like this for him and he never thought anyone ever would and he loves John so much he can't contain it and he'll treasure it forever and he hopes John won't be annoyed with his waterworks because he can't make them stop.

John doesn't mind. "It's all fine," he sniffs through his own tears. They walk out of Angelo's in each other's' arms. "It was a labor of love."

* * *

 **A/N: I had to put brackets in between breaks for the poem because the website kept deleting the breaks otherwise. Sorry about that.**


End file.
